Support for Britain's anti-EU UKIP hits record high

LONDON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Support for the anti-EU UK
Independence Party hit a record high of 25 percent, an opinion
poll showed on Sunday, days after it won its first elected seat
in Britain's parliament at the expense of Prime Minister David
Cameron's party.

The survey suggested that UKIP, which favours a British exit
from the European Union and tighter immigration controls, could
pick up more seats than previously thought in a national
election next year.

"It is not only our right to seek election into the House of
Commons (lower parliamentary house) in May, it has also become
our duty to succeed," Nigel Farage, UKIP's leader, wrote in the
Mail on Sunday newspaper.

"Too many people have been too badly let down by the
political establishment for far too long for failure to be an
option."

UKIP's rise threatens Cameron's re-election drive by
splitting the right-wing vote, increases the likelihood of
another coalition government, and poses a challenge to the
left-leaning opposition Labour party in northern England too.

UKIP won its first elected seat in parliament by a landslide
in a by-election on Thursday, after a parliamentarian from
Cameron's centre-right Conservatives defected and took almost 60
percent of the vote.

It won European elections in Britain in May, has poached two
of Cameron's lawmakers since late August, and will try to win a
second seat in parliament in a by-election expected next month.

Before Sunday, most polling experts had forecast it could
win only a handful of the 650 seats in parliament in 2015.

But based on the result of the Survation poll for The Mail
on Sunday, the party could win more than 100 seats in 2015, the
newspaper quoted a pollster as saying.

The poll put UKIP's support at 25 percent, 2 percent higher
than a similar poll in September.

Support for the Conservatives and Labour was tied at 31
percent, according to the poll, which was based on interviews
with 1,003 people nationwide.

The party itself is aiming for between 12 and 25 seats, and
two other polls on Sunday put UKIP's support at 16 and 17
percent.

RECORD POLL RATING

But all three polls underline the party's rise.

In 2010, the last time a national election was held, UKIP
won just 3.1 percent of the vote and no seats in parliament.

Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose party came within a whisker
of losing a seat in northern England to UKIP on Friday, wrote in
The Observer newspaper that he recognised that UKIP was "tapping
into a seam of discontent and despair that Labour cannot - and
will not - ignore."

Miliband signalled his party would not respond with a
knee-jerk policy change, but would stick to its re-election plan
to promise a higher minimum wage and more money for the
country's health service.
(Editing by Aidan Martindale and John Stonestreet)